Introducing Instacart’s Remote-Friendly Return to Work

When the global pandemic emerged in North America in early 2020, Instacart became an essential service overnight for millions of people. During this time, we saw customer demand surge and more active Instacart shoppers on our platform than ever before. We quickly transformed from a convenience to necessity for families across the U.S. and Canada, prioritizing the health and safety of our entire Instacart community to show up for our customers, shoppers, and retail partners.

While we worked to support the Instacart community, our employees were also adjusting to their new normal and the transition to remote work. From makeshift home offices to kitchen countertops and dining room tables, we saw first-hand that our teams can drive value and make an impact from wherever they’re working.

The past year taught us that workplace environments should be more flexible to meet the needs of employees. As the future of work quickly changes, our goal is to support the wellbeing and safety of our employees while maintaining our culture and enabling them to be engaged, productive, and successful. This also extends to how we support and welcome new members to the team — over the last year, we welcomed more than 970 new team members remotely.

To help us prepare for our return to the office in September, we surveyed our employees to better understand their needs as well as how they were feeling working from home. We learned that flexibility is paramount in a post-pandemic world and that employees felt connected and engaged even while geographically dispersed. In fact, 84% responded they could work productively in their current remote environment.

In light of this feedback, we’re evolving our workplace philosophy and embracing a new  remote-friendly working model. We believe that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to how we do our best work, and our new model will include a blend of in-office, flex, and fully remote options. While some roles are still best suited to be based in an office, over 70% of our current team is eligible to be fully remote if they choose to. 

We know that exceptional talent exists far beyond the cities we have offices in. As we continue to build diverse teams and grow our corporate team by more than 50% this year, we believe evolving our workplace philosophy enables us to retain and hire great people, no matter where they call home.

While our offices may look and feel different when we return in September, we’re committed to investing in our workplace experience to ensure that our team feels connected no matter where they are. Our high-impact, collaborative, and award-winning culture will continue to evolve as we provide our team the flexibility to support their lives, because work is just one ingredient for a full life.

P.S. We’re hiring! Check out current roles open to in-office, flex, or remote work. 

Instacart

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Instacart is the leading grocery technology company in North America, partnering with more than 1,500 national, regional, and local retail banners to deliver from more than 85,000 stores across more than 14,000 cities in North America. To read more Instacart posts, you can browse the company blog or search by keyword using the search bar at the top of the page.